19 Chapter 12: Personal Narratives

The personal narrative, a form of creative writing, is a story about personal experiences. Two examples of personal narratives are literacy narratives and memoirs. These genres share more similarities than differences, so for this reason, we will cover the genres in one chapter; however, your teachers may assign either the literacy narrative or memoir, so please closely read your essay prompts. This chapter covers similarities in these two genres, and in later subsections, the chapter covers how the genres are different.

Creative writing can take place in a variety of forms: poems, short stories, memoirs, novels, and even song lyrics. Memoirs and literacy narratives can also be classified as creative nonfiction. Narratives whether in the form of a poem, a story, or an essay, often attempt to achieve, or create, an effect in the minds of the readers. In this class, you will only write nonfiction, but if you would like to learn more about creative writing, check out the creative writing courses the CNM English department offers: English 2120 (nonfiction), English 2310 (three genres of CW), English 2320 (fiction), English 2330 (poetry). Additionally, the student literary journal at CNM, Leonardo, publishes creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. If you write a memoir for class that you are proud of, consider submitting your memoir essay to Leonardo, which accepts submissions in the fall and spring semesters. To learn more, email leonardo@cnm.edu.

The intended effect of creative writing differs depending on the writer’s goals. The intention or purpose may be to expound on the grieving process (catharsis), or to encourage an emotional response from the reader, for example, making a person laugh or cry. The potential results are unlimited. Creative writing can also be used as an outlet for people to get their thoughts and feelings out and onto paper. Many people enjoy creative writing but prefer not to share it. For this class, be prepared to share your narratives with your teacher and potentially classmates if your teacher uses peer review.

You want your audience to be moved by your story, which could mean through laughter, sympathy, fear, anger, and so on. The more clearly you tell your story, the more emotionally engaged your audience is likely to be.

Adapted from “Chapter 10” of Successful Writing, 2012, used according to Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

A reader may not have experienced similar life circumstances as yours, but that doesn’t mean the reader won’t be able to identify emotionally with what you and your characters go through. Human strife is human strife. For this reason, the subject of the memoir cannot be you. Your story, whether a literacy narrative or a memoir, needs to be about something larger than yourself. Your task, as the writer, is to explain how an event or experience is vexing, enlightening, or engrossing, something an outside reader could potentially relate to. Here’s an example, I used to spend summers at my grandmother’s house in New Jersey–snore. Who cares, right?

But what if I explain that during my stay at my grandmother’s house in New Jersey when I was nineteen, I learn that my father has re-married without telling me and he now has a child on the way. I understandably feel betrayed and left out. Throughout the story, I reflect on the idea of honesty and trust in father-daughter relationships, while explaining the events that unfolded as my father called me on the phone and said I was his little Pica-paca-pu. Now that’s a story. The more specific the details in a memoir or literacy narrative, the more human, appealing, and universal your story becomes.

Nonfiction and Memory

Because literacy narratives and memoirs often deal with events that happened early on in your life, you may be wondering, “But what if I don’t remember all the details?” That’s okay! Chances are that you won’t remember every word you spoke or what the weather was like, but it is important that you tell the emotional truth. In other words, you convey the heart of what happened and what it meant, rather than intentionally changing aspects of the story to make it more interesting or to make yourself (or your Grandma or your third grade teacher) look better. For example, let’s say your mother’s favorite color is red and you know when you were first learning to read that she had a red dress she wore often. It’s perfectly okay to say that your mother was wearing that red dress when she sat you down to teach you the alphabet; however, it’s not okay to say that she turned into a giant dinosaur that day. Filling in small pieces with likely details from the past is fine, but outright fabricating is not.

Structuring a Personal Narrative

When writing a personal narrative for class, first consider the prompt your teacher assigned you. Then, freewrite about topics that are of general interest to you. For more information about freewriting, see chapter six, which discusses the pre-writing process.

Once you have a general idea of what you will be writing about, you should sketch out the major events of the story that will compose your plot. Typically, these events will be revealed chronologically, and a climax at a central conflict that must be resolved by the end of the story. Major narrative events are most often conveyed in chronological order, the order in which events unfold from first to last. Stories typically have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and these events are typically organized by time.

Not all personal narratives are written in chronological order. Some are told backwards, or some are arranged thematically. On occasion, a narrative can be structured by starting in the present and then “flashing back” to a prior, related event. Typically, this is a strategy used to create interest and tension–the reader has to read the rest of the narrative to find out what happened. When using flashback, the writer usually concludes by returning to the present and reflecting on the flashback or its resolution. Regardless of your structure, whether you tell your story chronologically or non-chronologically, you will definitely need transitional words and phrases to guide the reader through time.

As always, it is important to start with a strong introduction to hook your reader into wanting to read more. Try opening the essay with an event that is interesting to introduce the story and get it going. Tell the story with scene and engaging details. Finally, your conclusion should help resolve the central conflict of the story and impress upon your reader the ultimate theme of the piece. The ultimate theme of the piece is the larger wisdom or the universal experience that other people can relate to and enjoy.

Adapted from “Chapter 10” of Successful Writing, 2012, used according to creative commons CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Crafting a Personal Narrative

Craft features are the tools a writer uses to tell stories. Some examples of craft features include theme, characterization, setting, mood, imagery, persona, plot–these help you to shape and craft your story.

Craft features, stylistic elements, or literary devices–these are all synonyms for the same basic idea–these are your writer’s toolbox, and using craft features effectively in a piece of writing tells the reader that you know your focus, and you are using craft as support for your larger idea–some people call it theme, some people call it a universal experience.

Here are a few craft features, or writer’s tools, defined for you from Successful Writing:

• Plot – The events as they unfold in sequence

• Characters -The people who inhabit the story and move it forward. Typically, there are minor characters and main characters. The minor characters generally play supporting roles to the main character, or the protagonist. Characters are fleshed out not only through how the author describes them, but also through their actions, dialogue, and thoughts.

• Conflict -The primary problem or obstacle that unfolds in the plot that the protagonist must solve or overcome by the end of the narrative. The way in which the protagonist resolves the conflict of the plot results in the theme of the narrative

• Theme – The ultimate message the narrative is trying to express; it can be either explicit or implicit. The theme of a story is also what makes it significant. If the story has lasting meaning to you, it will be meaningful to your readers.

Adapted from “Chapter Fifteen” of Successful Writing, 2012, used according to Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Successful Writing introduced a few craft features to help you write a personal narrative, but there are more features available for you to use in a personal narrative. The chapter continues with more talk of plot, and then other features.

Plot Triangle

• Basic Orienting Facts-Lets the reader know who, when, where, and what is happening.

• Organization-This is so important that it has a whole sub-section on the next page.

• Structure-This is also so important it has a whole sub-section on the next page.

• Scene-The reader likes vivid descriptions of the setting and what you said in order to feel immersed in a story. Scene is the opposite of summary. Use scene sparingly when you want to slow down and focus on an important part of the story.

• Summary-This term is slightly different when used in creative writing. In academic writing, when you summarize, you tell the reader the main idea of a text. In creative writing, summary is different–it’s a way to manage time. When you tell the reader what used to happen in your family, for example, you could explain, “My mother used to cook Sunday dinner for the family. She often made a roast.” You are summarizing what used to happen in the past. If you were to write about a specific Sunday, and you fleshed out what happened in scene with dialogue, included details about the sound of vegetables being chopped, described the smells in the kitchen, and told the reader what your mother was wearing, and reflected on the conversation you had, that would be a scene. Summary condenses information in both academic and creative writing, but in creative writing, summary is linked to time management.

• Persona– Be aware that the character of you in the memoir is a construct. It’s not literally you, because you are not words on the page, right? You are flesh and bone and you have a rich inner life. Use that rich inner life to develop your persona. Persona comes from the Latin word for mask. It’s the version of you that you would like to illustrate for the reader in your memoir. This is a complicated concept. One way to think of your persona is you in relationship to the situation or people in the story. The persona can also be shaped by time: who and what you were like when you were twelve, for example. It can be shaped by relationship to your topic: who and what you are like in relationship to your mother or third grade teacher or your sergeant in boot camp.

• Accountability to the reader-Readers won’t automatically question your credibility as a narrator on the page, but if you seem very infallible or somehow superhuman while everyone else in the story is tragically flawed, then the reader will wonder about the truthfulness of your own self-depiction. You are accountable to telling the story to your reader as truthfully as you can, while using craft elements to engage the reader. It’s a daunting task. Also, readers like protagonists who are flawed, so be truthful about your mistakes.

• Setting-Where and when the story takes place.

• Mood-The emotional weight or atmosphere of a story, created through details, description, and other craft features, for example, sometimes setting can help create a mood.

• Imagery-An image in a story, or in a poem, is a description that appeals to one of the five senses. An image should also convey additional meaning, either emotional and/or intellectual. It’s not an image to say green gelatin. Green gelatin is meaningless until the reader injects the gelatin with meaning. You can, however, create an image if you were to write, “The Frog Eye Salad recipe that my beloved grandmother used to make for Sunday picnics.” The latter description is specific and contains emotional content.

• Reflection-The sense and interpretation that you make of the events that transpired in your memoir and how you feel and/or think about them. You can also reflect on the story and relate the events to the universal meaning or theme you would like to include in the story.

You can use all of these tools or craft features to help you tell a story that is vibrant and focused. All of these craft features work together in a story to help the writer convey the ultimate theme or universal experience in a nonfiction work. That universal experience, what reading and writing means for you, personally, getting down to that level of personal experience actually makes your writing more appealing and universal to the reader. The more specific your descriptions and stories become, the more easily the reader can relate and enjoy your stories.

Literacy + Narrative = Literacy Narrative

A commonly accepted definition of literacy is the ability to read and write; however, there are different types of literacy. A person can be computer literate, which would suggest either having knowledge of computers or being well-versed in their function and capabilities.

For our purposes and time constraints, we will define literacy as the ability to read and write. When you combine that concept with the rhetorical mode of narration, a literacy narrative is born. In a literacy narrative, a writer may discuss learning to read and write, or the writer could recall a time in which he/she became more proficient or skilled in reading and writing, or a writer could even write about a person who taught him/her to read or be inspired by stories.

Because a literacy narrative is a story, a story needs to have some sort of trouble or something vexing for you as the protagonist. For that reason, literacy narratives can contain specific themes to help focus the story. For example, literacy can be linked to the idea of being empowered; for example, Malcolm X describes the freeing aspects of literacy in his essay, “Literacy Behind Bars.” If literacy has affected your identity or self-discovery, you could write about “…the time my journal saved my life or sanity…who knew I was a slam poet?” You could also tackle how literacy for you is linked to struggle or triumph; for example, the story could begin, “Here I am in college. I’m sure my second-grade teacher, Mrs. Lukenda, who once told me I was dumber than a box of rocks, would be surprised.”

The more specific you are in a literacy narrative, the more focused the details become. When you write about the time you learned to read and write, you wouldn’t want to focus on every detail of your life at the time, because it wouldn’t be useful to let the reader know that you learned to read at about the same time you visited Santa, or lost your first tooth, unless those details help you to tell your story.

Additionally, it is important to understand that there are many different types of literacy narratives. For example, you could explore a theme of empowerment through literacy; one example would be Malcolm X’s essay “Literacy Behind Bars” where he explores the freeing aspects of literacy. Or a literacy narrative could cover becoming literate in a new culture. Literacy can also pertain to learning a new language. If you are unsure whether your story of literacy follows your teacher’s guidelines, set some time aside before or after class to meet with your teacher. Or visit your teacher during their office hours and pitch your ideas.

Literacy Narrative Essay Example

A literacy narrative recounts a formative experience or experiences with reading and/or writing. As long as the event you write about was a meaningful part of the learning process and enough time has elapsed for substantive reflection, then you can pick a more recent experience, like this sample literacy narrative illustrates.

My College Education

Adapted from “Chapter Fifteen” of Successful Writing, 2012, used according to creative commons CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Brainstorming Literacy Narrative Ideas

You may receive an assignment prompt that asks you to write from your memory, recapturing the experience of reading a special book or text from your childhood or adolescence. Think of this as a chance to recapture something significant from your past, to explore its importance, and to reconstruct it in writing for others to appreciate.

Certain books we’ve read live in our memories. When we first read these books or when they were read to us, they spoke to us in some important way. They may still speak to us. Find a book that played an important role in your life when you were a child or an adolescent. Why was it important? What was it like to read this book? Did you read it on your own or did someone read it to you? If someone read it to you, who was it, and what was the experience like? Is there a connection between this book and learning to read on your own? Re-read the book. (If it is long, like Little Women, for example, it is all right to skim it, although you may find yourself re-reading certain parts.)

In your essay, use the book as a springboard for your writing by focusing on an insight (a discovery) you have made about the book. Be sure to cite passages and tell the effect they had on you. As you shape your drafts, give attention to organization, the way you build your story. Decide what the reader needs to know in the beginning, and think about the order the events happened and how much to tell the reader at each point. Give attention also to the pictures you create: try to reconstruct key moments by showing what happened rather than merely telling that it happened. Dialogue and scene descriptions often help to make those moments come alive. Finally, give careful thought to the story’s theme or controlling idea.

Adapted from “Chapter Three” of Rhetoric and Composition, 2013, used under creative commons CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Memoir

A literacy narrative is a genre of creative writing that focuses specifically on a person’s personal experience with literacy. Another genre of creative writing you may be asked to write in English 1110 is a memoir. The textbook Rhetoric and Composition describes memoirs as a form of creative writing, a first-person autobiographical text that records a writer’s reaction to important events in his or her life. This is different from an autobiography. Influential people, such as former U. S. Presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, often write lengthy autobiographies depicting the many critical events of their lives and careers. But every writer has experienced a few critical events that will be of interest to people who do not know them. These individual events are great topics for memoir.

According to Greg Martin, professor at UNM, when a person creates a memoir, the writer is examining a specific time in his/her life, and a very specific relationship–a relationship to a person or idea. The memoir must be larger than the writer in that an outside reader could relate to themes or universal meaning in the text.

Adapted from “Chapter Three” of Rhetoric and Composition, 2013, used under creative commons CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

How to Write a Memoir

You don’t have to be nearing the end of your life to write a memoir. A book-length memoir can cover your lifetime, but it had better be focused on some aspect of your persona, which is how you characterize yourself in memoir. So even two hundred pages of memoir needs focus.

Focus is central to any genre of writing–academic essays, business letters, memoirs, and so on. For this course, when you write a memoir, focus is even more important. Since you only have two to three pages to tell a story from your life, your persona (that is, you characterized on the page) should focus on a universal meaning you would like to relay to the reader and a relationship between you and something larger than yourself–a relationship to a person, an activity, a struggle. Pick a short time period, or maybe even a moment, for this course’s assignment, and focus on relaying to the audience what made that event in your life special, important, life-changing

If you are assigned a memoir in class, you will want to ask yourself a few questions:

1. What is the story I want to tell?
2. Why do I want to tell it?
3. How could an outside reader relate to what I write?

The third point above is important because you always want to think about the reader when you write. If you are writing a personal narrative, you aren’t just writing about yourself. You’re writing about the human experience and what it means to live inside your body and your mind at this particular moment in time.

Here’s an example of how a reader can relate to a narrative. Think about a children’s story, take Cinderella for example. She’s a nice, young lady; she’s so nice that even small animals are drawn to her. They know she won’t hurt them, but her family is mean, and they don’t see that she is special and beautiful.

Have you ever experienced or known someone who was not understood by a parental figure? Have you ever snuck out at night to go to a party, especially if there was a super-hot host or hostess who invited you? Have you experienced being double-crossed? Have you ever been forced to do chores you didn’t want to do? Cinderella experienced all these struggles and the story compels the reader to connect with the audience.

On many levels, this children’s story is relatable to an outside audience. Yes, it is fiction, and the fantastical elements might make it seem like an ordinary person couldn’t identify with the story; however, the specific details allow the reader to be immersed in the story and identify with the protagonist.

In this vein, you will write memoir. The way to create a more human and relatable story is to write specific details, and reflect on the story and what it means to you now. Professor Greg Martin at UNM has said that one of the most important parts of writing memoir is reflection. Reflection is you looking back on the events that you are describing and making sense of them.

Reflection in memoir is similar to interpreting and analyzing evidence in an academic essay. When you read the Analytical Writing chapters in this textbook, you will notice that interpreting evidence and making sense of statistics or facts is important. The same goes for writing memoir. You have to write about why the situation you have narrated is important or universal–how does it relate to the reader? What did you learn? What can we learn? However, you don’t want to sound so dogmatic when you begin the reflection area of an essay because the reader will have his/her own interpretation of the events you describe. And that’s the hard part about memoir–once you create a piece of art and present it to an audience, the audience will have a different interpretation from what you have created. And that’s fine. It’s part of the process of creating art–writing is art. Creative writing should be lyrical, and lecturing never sounds pretty. You can reflect by using other craft features like imagery and metaphor to help you create the meaning, theme, or universal wisdom in your story. But it’s up to the reader to decide on meaning.

Sample Memoir

Here is a short sample memoir written by one of your English teachers. It was first published in Brain, Child, a mother’s magazine.

In this sample memoir, there is a protagonist with a problem–she’s a perfectionist. She wants to do everything right, but she can’t. When she is unable to achieve her own expectations, she feels self-loathing. These are some heavy issues, and they were all sparked by forgetting snack for her daughter’s kindergarten class. The story becomes focused, and the trouble begins when she realizes that she forgot snack–forgetting snack is also the inciting incident, the trouble in the story that opens up the gateway to reflection and discovery. The reflection in this memoir is not about Cheez-its; the reflection has to do with the protagonist reflecting on why she feels so terribly about forgetting the class snack.

When you begin writing your memoir for class, try to focus the story on some aspect of yourself, and then risk wisdom, as Professor Greg Martin used to say–say something about what happened and make sense of the events. Lastly, trust that when you tell your story and include conflict (something has to happen to somebody), create a protagonist with which the reader can identify, reflect on the events, and describe using plenty of detail, the reader will want to come along for the ride.

Sections of this chapter written by Jennifer Schaller. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

The Danger of a Single Story